Although he can act, Brendan
Fraser seems to love to frequent movies where his character is a bumbling
good guy. He plays the normal everyman, a slightly clumsy man who tries
to be endearing, but usually ends up annoying. Dudley, Do-Right, Blast
From the Past, George of the Jungle, and to a small degree even The
Mummy all contain the same character. In Bedazzled, he
plays the same character again, yet this time he is an all-out loser.
Loser of course means he is a nerd who has no friends, with large glasses
and horrible clothes. This time, he is not even sympathetic. He is truly
a loser. His jokes are not funny, and unbeknownst to him, his coworkers
despise him. He is clueless to his coworkers attempts to ignore him, and
is anal-retentive. Bedazzled is a remake of the 1967 film by the
same name, then starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.

Elliot Richards (Fraser) is
in love with Alison Gardner (Frances O'Connor, Mansfield
Park, About Adam). They work together
(and have for four years) but she never noticed him. His wish for her
conjures up the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley, Austin
Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, EdTV) who agrees to give him seven
wishes for his soul. Why seven wishes? The Devil claims that people need
seven to get things right. Richards's first wish is to be rich, powerful
and married to Alison. The Devil grants him this by making him a South
American drug lord in a loveless marriage. The Devil turns Richards' wishes
against him at each opportunity by exploiting the general nature. So each
wish Richards makes becomes more elaborate, but the Devil still manages
to find some loophole. But the real reason there are seven wishes is to
stretch the plot to movie length and to let Fraser show off his comedic
talents in a variety of situations, from a basketball player to a President,
all with diminishing returns on comedy. The situations are wildly uneven,
either actually bordering on funny or just plain boring. However, it is
still Fraser's charisma and charm that makes watching this bearable. The
odd thing is that after the beginning, Richards' demeanor changes. He
is no longer the ultimate loser. He is now just a normal guy. This is
not because of anything his character experiences, but because the story
conveniently forgot to keep his manner consistent.

Director Harold Ramis (Groundhog
Day, Analyze This) is capable of so much better. Watching Fraser in
one movie can be trying enough, but this time there are essentially many
short movies with him playing different aspects of the same character.
O'Connor and some of his coworkers pop up frequently also, but none of
the performances are notable except for Orlando Jones. Jones' profile
is slowly rising, from his stint on Mad TV to roles in Liberty
Heights, The Replacements, and his job as the 7-Up spokesman.
He is not on screen for that long, but he is by far the funniest thing
in this movie. O'Connor was good in Mansfield
Park, but does almost nothing here. She is the wallpaper lining
all of Richards' wishes. It looks nice, but doesn't really do anything.
Hurley fares poorer. Peter Toolan, Ramis, and Larry Gelbart's script merely
calls on her to be sexy, which for Hurley, is not a stretch at all. She
struts her stuff in tight outfits and speaks in a British accent, and
nothing else. Sad to say, but it becomes boring watching her and the rest
of Bedazzled.